Research Reports from University of Bremen Provide New Insights into Primary Care (Patterns and trends of antibacterial treatment in patients with urinary tract infections, 2015-2019: an analysis of health insurance data): Health and Medicine – Primary Care

Insurance Daily News

2022 AUG 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on primary care is the subject of a new report. According to news reporting from the University of Bremen by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Urinary tract infections are among the most common reason for encounter and subsequent antibiotic prescriptions. Due to the risk of collateral damage and increasing resistance rates, explicit recommendations against the use of fluoroquinolones like ciprofloxacin in uncomplicated urinary tract infections have been issued.”

Funders for this research include Aok Bremen Bremerhaven; Universitat Bremen.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from University of Bremen: “However, to what extent these recommendations were followed and if there are relevant differences between the disciplines involved (general practitioners, urologists, paediatricians and gynaecologists) are unknown. We used anonymized data from a local statutory health insurance (SHI) company, which covered about 38% of all SHI-insured persons in the federal state of Bremen, Germany between 2015-2019. Data included demographics, outpatient diagnoses and filled prescriptions on an individual level. One-year prevalence of urinary tract infections was 5.8% in 2015 (females: 9.2%, males: 2.5%). Of all 102,715 UTI cases, 78.6% referred to females and 21.4% to males, 6.0% of cases were younger than 18 years. In females, general practitioners were the most common diagnosing speciality (52.2%), followed by urologists (20.0%) and gynaecologists (16.1%). Overall, fluoroquinolones were most often prescribed (26.3%), followed by fosfomycin (16.1%) and the combination of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim (14.2%). Fluoroquinolones were most often prescribed by urologists and general practitioners, while gynaecologists preferred fosfomycin. During the study period, shares of fluoroquinolones decreased from 29.4% to 8.7% in females and from 45.9% to 22.3% in males.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Despite a clear trend toward a more guideline adherent prescription pattern, there is still room for improvement regarding the use of second-line antibiotics especially fluoroquinolones. The choice of antibiotics prescribed differs between specialities with higher uptake of guideline-recommended antibiotics by gynaecologists, mainly because of higher prescription shares of fosfomycin.”

For more information on this research see: Patterns and trends of antibacterial treatment in patients with urinary tract infections, 2015-2019: an analysis of health insurance data. BMC Primary Care, 2022,23(1):1-11. The publisher for BMC Primary Care is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-022-01816-6.

Our news journalists report that more information may be obtained by contacting Guido Schmiemann, Institute for Public Health and Nursing Sciences, Department for Health Services Research, Bremen University. Additional authors for this research include Falk Hoffmann, Axel Hamprecht, Kathrin Jobski.